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Update: Hank Williams biographical film trailer online

I'm a little confused about this Hank Williams film, for we first heard about a biographical film of the legendary Country and Western singer/songwriter back in August of 2009, and it seemed as though it might cover similar territory, but nothing seems to connect that with the trailer for The Last Ride which has just been released online. Nothing except Hank Williams.

The film follows the last journey of Hank Williams in December 1952 as he is driven from Alabama to Ohio by a young man who starts off not even knowing who he is, and who ends up being the last person to speak to, or see him, alive.

Back in 2009 we heard that the film was going to reference the book Hank Williams: The Biography by Colin Escott (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com) and although Marc Abraham wasn't going to adapt it directly, he was going to be using it as source material after the producers bought the rights to it.

Abraham said of the film:

"He was the first real star who went down as the result of his lifestyle, succeeded by Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain…He destroyed himself, but for six years leading to his death, Hank had six songs each year in the top 10."

Hank Williams is a legend in Country and Western and he secured eleven number ones, including one just after his death. His life is described as a troubled one as he survived through the depression and suffering from spina bifida for which he relied on alcohol and morphine for pain relief, it is widely believed that this contributed to his death in 1953 at just 29.

The story is that he hired Charles Carr, the son of a friend of the family, to drive him to Chattanooga where he was to get a flight to Charleston. However the flight landed at Knoxville due to bad weather and their road trip continued from there.

At a hotel where they checked in to stay the night, a doctor was called to look after Williams, and after attending to him, the journey continued with Williams having to be taken by a wheelchair to the car.

An hour later the police stopped Carr for driving dangerously, and it's reported that the officer thought that the passenger "looked dead", however Carr stated that when they stopped at a service station some time later and Williams was still coherent.

Later that trip Carr was alarmed when he leant back to move a blanket back over Williams, concerned that there had been so little noise or movement from him, and was shocked at the way he seemed. Stopping at the next service station he got directions to the nearby hospital and headed straight there.

It was there that Hank Williams was pronounced dead and the official cause of death recorded as heart failure.

Here's the trailer which starts off well but seems to become just a series of shots from the film that, if you're familiar with the real story, might spark a few connections in your head, otherwise it doesn't really flow very well. For me the biggest issue is that I'm not getting a sense of who the man is and of what the story really entails.

Update: The previous trailer was removed, thanks to Jed for bringing it to my attention. It took a lot of searching, but a copy came up overseas and I've amazingly found out how to embed it. No details of why it disappeared in the first place: